


Puppets

by Lightpoint



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Clones, Dathomir, Fucked Up, Horror, Hux the Chew Toy, Jakku, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo has a thing for Vader it is known, Kylux - Freeform, M/M, Mind Rape, Possession, Sidious has a thing for Vader, Sidious is an evil fucker, Sith, Sith Sorcery, i hope there's nothing in that helmet, keep the armor on, srsly this is twisted, this grew a plot by accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:38:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6164345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightpoint/pseuds/Lightpoint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux facilitates Darth Sidious' return from the netherworld of the Force. </p><p>Not that he has a choice. He is, after all, one of Sidious' many clones.</p><p>Meanwhile, Hux and Kylo are in an established relationship. Then Sidious finds out that Kylo is Darth Vader's grandson...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Puppets

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the 'The Force Awakens Kink Meme' prompt:  
>   _'Kylo Ren and General Hux retire to Hux's quarters for a heated "military strategy discussion." Little do they know, Hux is a clone of Emperor Palpatine, and Palpatine has just figured out the last hurdle to regaining a mortal body. Disoriented and fresh from chaos, he finds himself in a unique situation and doesn't like it. At first.'_  
>    **Prompt is[here](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/3467.html?thread=6674315#cmt6674315)**
> 
> Trigger warning: non-con, because 1. Hux is still in there, and this is basically possession and 2. Palps is taking the sweet new bod for a test drive, and Kylo isn’t his only target. You have been warned. This is really dark. There’s also some Palpakin in here, from a certain point of view…

There weren’t a lot of choices. 

_I knew that was too easy._

Darth Sidious shook off the ice of the void, his spirit writhing with anger, a viscous stain on the Living Force. The rift in his consciousness between his Apprentice’s betrayal and clawing his way back to this reality screamed with noise, blood, and the jealousy of his fellow Sith.

The Seven Sith Hells were real, after all. It was him or them – thanks to that _stain_ Qui-Gon and his recruits it had become much more difficult to pass the Veil. Not that climbing to freedom on the broken bodies (spirits, technically) of his fellow inmates bothered him – it was just that he’d expected a different welcome when he rejoined the Living Force.

Such as Vader, the eternal, atoning Sentinel, completing his penance at the Gate. A rematch.

_Too pure and good to get your hands dirty fighting your Master, eh? Pathetic._

Unfortunately he now had the answer to why he’d met less resistance than expected; his clones were _occupied_. All of them, even the ones that _came out wrong_. Furthermore, all but a few had ended up in massively inconvenient situations. He’d go back to the First Hell before taking over the middle-aged Dathomirian house-husband, or the legless Old Republic History teacher. The husk rotting in the med-bay in a crashed ship on Jakku, barely self-aware, was in much too vulnerable a situation to be a good choice – how in the _galaxy_ would he get off that Force-forsaken planet? One had been discovered only recently, and had not been dosed with growth accelerants - _a child_. 

So in the end, there was only one choice.

*

“Everyone. Out.”

General Hux fumed as his staff retreated from the conference room, their collective tails between their legs. The leather of his gloves creaked as he clenched his fists. 

_1…2…3…_

He breathed in and out, steadying himself. Only then did he rise, turning off the holoprojector and exiting in a reasonably dignified fashion, all but throwing his datapad to his aide. Her small hands shook as she followed him, struggling to keep up, reciting his schedule. 

_Fuck, there it is again – No -_ The corridor swam before his eyes as another blast of anger rocked through him. The aide – _Lieutenant…Vas ‘Og? Von Al?_ \- yelped as he grasped her thin shoulder for support. 

The world blurred into a whirlpool of confused colors, smells, and textures. Suddenly the inside of his mouth tasted absolutely _wonderful_. 

“Sir!” 

Dimly he registered the flawlessly polished - _as it should be_ \- deck rushing up to meet him, and then, nothing.

*

_Ben!_

Three decks away, deep in meditation in his private chamber, Kylo Ren jumped to his feet.

“Who is it?” _Who dared?_

Only silence answered him. Kylo sank back to his knees, shaking. Something drew his eyes forward – not to Lord Vader’s remains, no, but _beyond_ them. His heart raced. Could it be - ? 

“Grandfather?” he whispered, throwing himself as far into the Dark Side as he dared. 

Nothing.

Kylo groaned. Another false alarm. His mind playing tricks on him, and now he was too agitated to have any hope at all of reaching Lord Vader’s spirit. He stripped off his armor and stumbled into bed, completely ignoring a final whisper:

_Run…_

*

Hux woke screaming. He barely recognized the harsh overhead lights in the med-bay, warped as his vision was, as though he was staring into the wrong end of a telescope, the thin cotton sheets chafing like sandpaper. His entire body felt like an exposed nerve.

There was a flurry of activity in the corner of his vision as a gray-clad medic hit the call button and a swarm of medical personnel descended on his bed. Someone shone a pen-light in his eye. It felt as though he’d been stabbed with an ice pick.

“Sir? Can you hear me?”

“I’m alive you idiots! STOP THAT!” Hux yelled – or tried to. His throat spasmed, as though a noose had been jerked tight around his windpipe. 

_Kylo you asshole, this is_ not _the time!_ He reached for the thread of connection that he had formed with the Sith over their long months together, first as belligerent, reluctant allies, and then as…something else. It was a wall of fire that blazed, without exception, whenever Hux reached for him, or vice versa - not always in the good way.

They were still working on ‘boundaries’.

He touched a void. 

_What -_

Claws of black ice dug into his nerves. The hold on his throat slackened, and he _did_ scream as he was dragged over the edge, his senses flooding with greedy triumph.

When he woke again, his fingers were paging through a datapad. His face felt sticky, numb, as though someone had pasted it to his face and was yanking the corners of his mouth with hook and thread. Like a fish on a line, or a puppet of flesh. His lips were buzzing – humming – was that a solo from _Lord Giovanni_? _I love that opera…_ Hux thought, the inane thought rising to the surface of his growing panic.

“Ah, Lieutenant…”

That was his voice. His lips – he felt them move. A hand lifted, waved his aide - _Valan, came a whisper, Zo Valan_ \- to his bedside. 

“Sir!” she said. A warm, tingling feeling washed over Hux. Relief. It had an odd, light edge, though, too…feminine to be his. 

“Thank the Force…” she whispered. There was a strange, solid core to Lieutenant Valan’s relief. She _cared_. It shone brightly, even through Hux’s…cage. 

Yes. That was exactly what it was. He was a prisoner in his own body. 

**_YOUR body?_** Wrath blasted through him like a turbolaser, and Hux’s world dissolved into pain. 

_I’m sorry!_ he wailed, when he was coherent enough for words. _I’m -_

Was that his finger tracing slow circles on Lieutenant Valan’s palm?

_No!_

More pain, this time crushing him into a whimpering ball, even as visceral pleasure rolled through him. His subordinate trembled as his lips caressed the inside of her wrist – so delicate, soft, breakable…

The door chimed. His captor released the trembling aide. 

“Thank you Valan. That will be all for now,” he told her. She tripped away, red-faced and shaking. 

“General, the reports you requested…” Mikata stepped in, his arms full of flimsiplast, flash drives, and a clunky data-reader at least 30 years out of date.

Hux’s hands waved him away. His mouth smiled again, still feeling like a stretching rubber band.

Pleasure welled up around him. Hux sighed with relief as the…whatever it was directed its attention to the pile of information. He felt a cold hand stroke what he supposed could be his ‘head’ in his state of limbo. It warmed slowly, with the sense of an afterthought, petting him up and down his spine like he would a cat. 

_There there…Sleep…_

Hux slept.

*

Kylo couldn’t sleep. The Force snapped with energy in a way that he rarely experienced outside of the presence of Supreme Leader Snoke. His very blood hummed with it, his mind a live wire. 

“Grandfather?” he asked, for the tenth time. He could no longer deny it. There was _something_ here. What else could it be? The Dark Side clung to him as he fed it his misery.

_Why won’t you speak to me?_

*

When Hux woke up, he was fucking Lieutenant Valan. She was face down in his bed, covered in bruises. Her cunt had long since dried up, though her sobs of pain were muffled by his pillow. She turned her head to the side – her lip was split and bleeding into his sheets.

_Not so bad, is it, 47-B?_

A serial number.

 _Row after row of tanks, each containing a body. Each one with his face._

Hux screamed. Sidious grunted and came, nails raking bloody lines down Zo Valan’s back. 

*

Kylo Ren paced around the twisted body of the pretty Lieutenant that one of the Sanitation workers (FN-something-or-other) had pulled out of a drain following complaints of low water pressure in the mess hall. She reeked of the Dark Side.

He removed a glove and pulled back her eyelids. A jolt of fear seized him. Whatever she’d seen last had stopped her heart.

*

“This is _asinine_. How did this get past Level 1?”

Hux and Sidious were in total agreement. The ensign shook in his boots as he took back the report. 

“You have two hours. Get it done.” The teenager all but ran from the bridge. 

“General.” 

For the first time, Hux dared hope. 

_KYLO -_

The pain shut him down, worse than before and yet somehow…less. More panic rose in his heart. Was _he_ less? 

The thing eyed Kylo, a look of bland disinterest on his face. Hux wanted to gag. It was the same look he wore just before he dragged Kylo into his room. 

“Yes, Ren?” His voice was clipped, with that teasing edge that was just for the two of them. 

“There has been a development in the Resistance’s efforts. It requires discussion.”

Discussion.

_Fuck._

“Urgent discussion, sir Knight?” His voice pitched lower. Just for Kylo. 

“Quite, General.” Hux could practically feel the smirk. 

Then Kylo reached for him, a rough length of flame cutting the Force like a blowtorch. Having seen far, far more of the Dark Side than he’d ever wanted to, Hux sprang for it, wanting to wrap the almost-caring heat around his heart and burn the cold away. He’d never believed the adage about ‘degrees of evil’ until yesterday. _Kylo…Hear me…_

Sidious smirked. His will surged, throwing Hux back into the depths of his prison like a broken doll, mimicking his fragile soul, twining it with the Knight’s. Their bond flashed with some rather choice images from the previous weekend…and Lord Vader’s helmet.  
Hux held his breath as his cage shook with something like shock. More information flowed. 

_Grandfather._

*

This time, Hux was awake. He fought, throwing himself against his invisible prison, screaming his throat bloody. Sidious pushed Kylo onto the bed, eyes locked on the blackened helmet on the plinth not three feet away. 

_Vader…Come out come out wherever you are!_ Sidious mocked, staring down at his prize, enhancing his strength subtly with the Force, locking Kylo in place. _Pull up a chair..._

“Open for me,” he hissed in Kylo’s ear. Hux moaned as Sidious flooded Kylo’s senses with white-hot pleasure. The Knight of Ren stared up at him in shock. 

“…Hux?”

Sidious smirked and yanked his head back, trailing open-mouthed kisses from his jawline to where his neck met his armor, and Kylo’s suspicions evaporated in a blaze of lust. He reached for the first clasp on his armor, only to have Hux’s hand swat it away.

“Leave it on,” Sidious ground out. A thought twisted in Kylo’s belly. Sidious grasped it, stroked, pulled it to the surface.

It blossomed into need with barely any encouragement. The Master was happy to oblige. 

“Put it on.”

Kylo whined. He summoned his Grandfather’s helmet with the Force as Sidious pulled off Kylo’s trousers and unfastened his uniform pants. He sucked on his still-gloved fingers, slicking them up with spit, and without ceremony thrust two into Kylo’s ass. The younger man shook, almost dropped the helmet. He fumbled with the fasteners, and the smoky grit that still clogged the ventilator and eyes as he was worked open. 

Somewhere, lost in the void, Hux felt his heart go numb. Dimly, he was aware of Kylo clutching the headboard, gasping as his mouth and nostrils filled with ash, eyes stinging and red, choked with crumbling steel and burned bone. The hot, rough pressure of his spit-slicked cock filling his lover felt like a memory. The warped death’s head merged and flowed with a gleaming, whole mask, a flimsy container for unimaginable _power_. With each thrust Kylo’s hair shifted from black to dirty blonde and back again, his eyes from brown to blue to yellow and back again. 

“Vader…” Sidious whispered. Kylo broke apart. 

And Hux was gone.

*

Afterwards, Sidious smashed the helmet against the wall. When Kylo awoke, roaring, he blasted it to slag with Force Lightning. 

And another Skywalker knelt at his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **3/5/16 EDIT:**  
>  The _'Lord Giovanni'_ solo that Sidious is humming in the med bay is a reference to the opera _Don Giovanni_ by Mozart. To quote [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Giovanni): _'Don Giovanni, a young, arrogant, and sexually promiscuous nobleman, abuses and outrages everyone else in the cast, until he encounters something he cannot kill, beat up, dodge, or outwit.'_
> 
> Sidious, of course, _did_. 
> 
> For now...
> 
>  **4/10/16:** Now has a [Pinterest Page](https://www.pinterest.com/onelightpoint/puppets/) because Part 2 ~~is coming~~ is up.


	2. Spare Parts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A coda of sorts to 'Puppets', mostly about the other clones, and Sidious' future plans. Prepare for angst...and maybe some hope ;_;
> 
> The clones aren't a hive mind - they're just really, really Force-sensitive, and some of them are more aware of their situation than others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **From _Puppets:_**  
>  'His clones were _occupied_. All of them, even the ones that _came out wrong_. Furthermore, all but a few had ended up in massively inconvenient situations. He’d go back to the First Hell before taking over the middle-aged Dathomirian house-husband, or the legless Old Republic History teacher. The husk rotting in the med-bay in a crashed ship on Jakku, barely self-aware, was in much too vulnerable a situation to be a good choice – how in the _galaxy_ would he get off that Force-forsaken planet? One had been discovered only recently, and had not been dosed with growth accelerants - _a child... '_

*

**The Child**

*

Pen did not dream. They told him that he did, but since he never remembered them, he figured that they didn’t count. He sleepwalked too; His parents got used to finding him curled up in strange places, or wandering the apartment, mumbling nonsense. They’d guide him back to his little bed or, if he was crying, tuck him in with them.

Sometimes he thought that his total lack of dreams was the reason for his obsession with the past. Unlike his peers, he bounced out of bed every morning, ate his breakfast with gusto, and took the earliest shuttle to school. His little sister Meg called him ‘a morning person’, and teased him relentlessly, but that wasn’t even close to the truth. 

He just couldn’t wait to get to school. Even better, the library opened early. He lost himself in the sharp tang of fresh data cards, and even better (on his birthday, a gift from the bemused librarian), the crisp, dusty smell of the _real books_ in the back room, secured to metal racks with light chains. 

So many stories. Adventures. Knowledge. _Actual_ dreams, and endless rumination and argument over what was, what is, and what could be. Someday.

*

Pen found out that he was adopted on his tenth birthday. He hacked into his medical records via the library network, jumping through three proxy ‘nets to cover his tracks, and wiping the access logs on his way out.

They found out anyway, and sat with him at the kitchen table as he told them what he’d seen; an old, grainy holo of a room lined with tanks. Another filled with blaster fire, and doctors running from tank to tank, frying the contents with electricity.

 _Destroying the evidence,_ his father said, anger rolling off him in waves.

But they’d missed one. Pen had seen his mother, so much younger in her New Republic uniform, step gingerly over the wreckage and stand over a smashed incubator, eyes wide and shocked. There was no audio, but Pen’s mind flowed over with the smell of smoke and ichor, a child crying out in terror, and a storm of emotion as the soldiers processed their discovery.

“You’re our son,” his mother said. 

Pen ran to her, climbed into her lap, and cried.

*

**The Teacher**

*

Jonah had always enjoyed the finer things in life. He blamed it on his childhood. His earliest memories were of icy concrete under his feet, a mattress that might as well have been stuffed with sand, and iron bars between him and anyone that might hold him. 

They made up names. Most of the others took them from the minders, or the white-armored shadows, as if they could take some of that power for their own. _Idiots._ Denying the truth of his situation was foolish. So he took his from a _book_ , a novel that his minder brought every morning, and was taking a hilariously long time to read.

Yes, he could read. They all could. Jonah supposed that whoever had put them here (the how did not matter – they all came from _somewhere_ ) thought that Aurebesh, Basic, and High Galactic were necessary. He didn’t care why. 

But he was grateful. The novel was completely ridiculous – Historical fiction, a lurid tale of the excesses of the Old Republic, barely any ‘plot’ to speak of. The prose was terrible – it clanged and burned in his head, though how he _knew_ it was terrible was impossible to grasp. Sometimes, in the back of his mind, he heard laughter, and a painful buzzing filled his senses until he was curled up in a ball in the back of his cage-bed, sobbing.

The descriptions, however…He began to have _thoughts_. 

He had no idea, for example, what a ‘female’ was, but…They sounded _fun_. The buzzing in his mind supplied pieces, shadows, half-formed ideas, but not so much as whatever had given him the gift of the written word. He began to dream. 

Jonah swallowed what he found when he woke up. Some instinct told him that his minders would _not_ be pleased. He covered the smell by wetting his bed. 

He dreamed of other things. His concept of ‘softness’ was limited to a fresh set of sheets, or a new tunic. The novel was full of luxury, of ‘silk’ sheets, elaborate, beautiful clothing, and choice, rare food. He had a problem wrapping his head around _food_. It was almost worse than the females.

Jonah wanted it all. There was a whole world outside the sterile room, his stinking mattress, and the dozens of other boys who looked exactly like him.

Thus, when pain and noise rocked their minds, and the room they’d spent their whole lives in went up in flames, Jonah was the first out the door. Most of the others stayed. 

*

His new family loved him. Jonah loved them for the way they showed it. When he got over his shock at their house, his new bedroom, and the so-soft cotton sheets and pillow, he decided to find out just how much _more_ he could get. They’d seen pictures of where he’d been kept. He felt their horror, their guilt - _why guilt, they didn’t do it_ \- and their need to somehow make it up to him. They wanted to fix the first 13 years of his life.

 _As if that was possible_. But they tried, almost has hard as he did. He still woke in the night, not screaming, but drenched with sweat, frozen, wondering where his minder was, and how much trouble he was going to be in.

Yes, they spoiled him, but not the kind of spoiling that he saw out in the city, of parents giving in to children screaming for candy, or pouting teenagers all but drooling over the latest tech fad. Jonah never asked, just watched with sad eyes, and told himself that he was acting.

He did them proud. He excelled in school, was a model of Coruscanti youth. He graduated from the most prestigious secondary school in their district at the top of his class. His dissertation on pre-Empire business practices earned him near planetwide acclaim. Credits began rolling in when his first book hit the stands, and soon Jonah was able to care for them, in turn.

Despite his childhood fantasies, he did not over-indulge. The comforts of money, security, and companionship still, on some level, bewildered him. He still thought that, someday, they’d be taken from him, and he would wake up in his cage-bed, stinking with urine, eating his own come. He lived within the limits of his tenure, and either saved what was left or sent it home. 

Then his parents died. 

It was a freak accident. Their modest apartment caught fire due to dry air and static. The medics told him that it had been fast, but he knew better. He’d felt it. 

Jonah was no stranger to pain, but _this_ …Waking up a child would have been better. It took him completely by surprise. Almost overnight he went from ‘venerable professor’ to ‘lecherous glutton’. He sold the rights to his books to a Holo production company, and the profits were more than enough to wrap him in luxury. He began to _consume_ , became a man with _needs_ , a bleeding gut that hungered. It wanted it all, and he obliged. Wine, drugs, women, men, food…The days blurred together, a shining fog of desperate glee, and the aching lust for more.

Not even the speeder accident slowed him down. He had more than enough credits to get an excellent set of prosthetics.

He wasn’t surprised when, about three months after their death, he woke up to harsh, white lights, icy concrete, and _hunger_. 

*

**The Husband**

*

Tenkel ko Tezmin leaned against the doorframe and frowned. 

_They should have been back hours ago,_ he thought. 

Affectionate amusement flickered in the back of his mind.

“Give them time,” said Ava, smiling as she sharpened her scythe. “You know how good Maven is at hiding.” 

“I’d just rather this be settled without bloodshed,” he said, turning to face his wife. “Vana can have any male she wants. And she only wants _Maven_ because _Jonia_ wants Maven. It’s very…” 

Tenkel shook his head, grasping at words. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Him and Ava were one thing, but _this?_

“Traditional?” Ava asked. 

“Unnecessary,” said Tenkel. _He loves her._ “They should have done this out in the open.”

Ava sighed.

“Jonia wants to make sure that there won’t be any problems after the wedding,” she said. 

Tenkel shook his head, and pulled his own scythe off the rack. 

“How they haven’t thrown that…woman out yet is completely beyond me,” he muttered. 

Vana Vas was one of the only Sisters in the Singing Mountain clan to have more than one husband. While technically legal, such things had become quite rare in recent years – at least compared to back when Ava Tezmin had won _him._ And when a witch expanded her household in such a way, her responsibilities towards her males, if anything, increased. She was meant to care for them, to treat them with respect, to accept them as partners in every sense of the word. 

Vana did not. Her males weren’t talking, but in Tenkel’s opinion the way they walked with their eyes on the ground, their minds wreathed in terror, was evidence enough. 

And the _flavor_ of that terror…Ava had warned him never to speak of it, but it felt far too much like Dark magic for him to ignore. 

His jaw clenched. The day that _creature_ tried to take one of his sons would be her last day alive. 

Memory welled up, unbidden, from the quiet, dark corner of his soul that he tried his best to ignore. Most of the time, it worked.

_A monster with a woman’s shape shrieked Dark, slithering words as her Sisters danced around the fire. He struggled against her spell, rage mingling with terror as she sunk freezing talons into his mind, cold, dead fingers crawling over his body._

_And above it all, a hollow void, a voice -- _dead dead dead he’s gone dead_ \-- a presence, watching him, filling his mind with contempt, finally turning away. _

_Worthless._

Ava had rescued him -- _stolen_ she called it –- a few weeks later, long enough for him to watch, to listen, to absorb as much as he could. 

Long enough for him to know Dark magic when he saw it. To even – 

_No._ It would destroy Ava, tear their family apart, spit in the face of everything that he’d taught their children.

No matter how easy it would be. Problem solved; a secret Nightsister killed with her own spells. _Beautiful irony,_ he thought.

 _But if Jonia wins…_

“It won’t come to that,” said Ava sharply. 

_It will,_ he thought.

“She can do it,” he said. He set his weapon down and knelt behind his wife, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. “She’s _our_ daughter, after all.”

*

**Husk**

*

33-R’s first breath was agony. The oxygen mask sliced into his thin skin as a grinding, metallic jolt shook the nutrient tank and the air pump shut off, leaving him sucking vacuum. His skin lit up with pain as the viscous, protective fluid drained away, leaving him naked and shivering, hanging from the gestation grid, a thin cry welling up from his underdeveloped throat.

Then his ears clanged with the groan of ancient machinery, and his chest seized up in panic as the ground fell away and the nutrient cables and blood drip lines tore away from his flesh. He slid out of the tank and hit the ground with a wet thud. 

More pain, this time in his eyes as a beam of white light stabbed out from the shadows. He cried out and thrashed in panic, wasted arms scrabbling helplessly on the cold floor, sticky with the ichor from his tank. 

There was a mumbled apology, and then the light-knife was replaced with a still uncomfortable but bearable red glow. 33-R whimpered and shrunk away as soft footsteps drew close, and the red light came to a rest near his feet. Large, dark eyes and small hands hovered over him.

_No…_

“Please…”

The girl inched closer. He summoned all his strength and reached up to touch her face.

“Kill…me…”

*

The man was a mass of bruises when Rey finally got him back to the _Hellhound II._ He hadn’t spoken since she found him in the belly of an almost perfectly-preserved Dreadnaught, fallen by chance into a massive underground cave system in the northern Wastes. His skin was as pale as bleached bone, and so delicate that the slightest touch made him flinch. She strapped him to a stretcher, administered a light sedative, and carried him out, first by a turbolift that she’d fortunately been able to beat into some kind of shape, and then with a sturdy chainfall and grappling hook.

The latter was the most terrifying hour of Rey’s life. 

She hid him under a blanket behind her on her speeder, tying him securely to the wide support she’d installed that morning – an emaciated man and a small girl on a barely-functional speeder would likely attract the very worst kind of attention, and a fight would probably kill him, given the way his heart spun into overdrive at the slightest noise or movement.

Rey got _really_ worried when he remained limp and listless when she got him into the shower. What little she knew of medicine told her that she had to get him clean, to keep him healthy…and since he could stand on his own (barely), she’d thought that a nice warm shower would cheer him up. It always worked for her. 

He let her clean him, but did not speak, and barely reacted despite the obvious sensitivity of his thin skin. Afterwards, she bundled him up in a thin sheet, and laid him gently on her bed. She pulled an extra blanket out of her closet and curled up on the floor next to the bed. She’d almost dropped off to sleep when he finally spoke.

“Why?”

Rey sat up. She’d been asking herself the same question.

“Because,” she said. Cloth rustled as he shifted gingerly onto his side.

“Because why?”

“Because…um…” She waved her hand vaguely, then stopped when she remembered that he couldn’t see her. “You just…It’s…You just do, ok?” She turned to him and glared. “Go to sleep.”

He did. 

*

**The Master**

*

Sidious paced the frozen ground of Starkiller Base, nodding to his workers as he passed. He'd 'forgotten' to wear gloves again, choosing instead to soak up the still-novel pleasure of touch. Captain Phasma followed, two paces behind and to his left, as was the custom of his Royal guards in that other time. His idea.

He'd been almost touched when he realized that her armor had been crafted from the remains of his personal shuttle. Also amused, because the object of her devotion was inches away without her knowing. Had he even met the girl? She would have been about, oh, three in the last year of his life...

Ben Solo was another matter. Sidious refused to call Vader's successor by his chosen name - he hadn't earned it yet. Not by a long shot. Sidious' jaw clenched. He had to dig out that nonsensical devotion to this...Snoke person, whoever he was. What better way than to remove Ben Solo's best link to the man? Fortunately the boy had already thoroughly burned his bridges with the Jedi order.

He made a mental note to thank Snoke, ideally before he broke his spine.

Sidious, Phasma, and a cluster of aides (including Lieutenant Valan's much...sturdier replacement) finally arrived at the parade ground. He listened carefully as Phasma described her troops' strengths and weaknesses, and offered several rather insightful tactical suggestions, all in a cool, professional tone, only enhanced by her helmet's voice filter. _Not bad,_ he thought. Conditioning programs worked best when started with the young. Such a feat would had required a great deal of long-term planning...and given the First Order's rate of growth, it had paid off.

And so he decided to watch. He'd finish Starkiller Base, perform whatever duties this 'Snoke' required of him, and instruct Solo to do the same. If he could shield his mind from the Jedi Order for decades, he could hide one barely-in-control Darksider from the Supreme Leader.

It would work, of course, but...Sidious flinched. The Force chimed, a long, clear tone that burned against his shields. A light breeze caressed his senses. Laughter.

Sidious shook himself. He reached out with the Force, and caught - as expected - nothing.

"General?"

Phasma finished, looked to him for instruction.

"Excellent work Captain," he said, favoring her with a smile. "Proceed as planned." He headed back to base, gesturing that she follow him.

"Now, about this 'map'..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Tenkel is on Dathomir, a matriarchal society where marriages consist of females kidnapping their husbands. The EU novel _The Courtship of Princess Leia_ implies that there's a mutual consent methodology (of sorts) in the system - a male accepts the kidnapping lasso. My headcanon is that the scenario can be arranged ahead of time, at least among couples that know each other first. 
> 
> 2\. The concept is kind of like wildling marriages from the _Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire_ universe, actually. Or, in Tenkel's case, the 'rescue romance' thing. Ava saved him from a Nightsister clan. And it REALLY sucks to be a male in one of those.


End file.
